posted at 9:21 pm on June 8, 2012 by Allahpundit

The effort to recall Scott Walker failed, but exit polls show the president holding an edge in the state, which hasn’t voted Republican since 1984. It’s the weak job numbers from last week that has Democrats panicking. There’s a sense that the economy has stalled, and that the Obama campaign is stuck in a time warp with a message that assumes steady if slow progress, when the jobs picture may not get better.

“Our real concern is that they’re just sleepwalking,” says a Democratic strategist, who did not want to be quoted by name criticizing the Obama campaign. His fear, echoed by many, is that Obama’s responses to the dire economic conditions fall far short of the bold leadership needed.

The latest gimmick rolled out by the White House, a To-Do list aimed at Congress that fits on a Post-it note, is emblematic of what’s missing. “A To-Do list is for little things, like picking up the dry cleaning; you don’t put “schedule your son’s MRI” or “buy a new house” on the list,” says this frustrated Democrat.

***

Mitt Romney would collect at least 72 of the 110 electoral votes available in eight battleground states if President Barack Obama’s current polling numbers, as reported by The Huffington Post, are overstated by a mere one percent.

Romney would win that electoral majority in Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Wisconsin if there is a one percent undercount and if undecided voters there split evenly between Romney and Obama…

Some Democratic-leaning organizations are concerned that the polls may overstate Obama’s support. “This is going to be a very tough year to poll,” MSNBC host Chris Matthews said Wednesday

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Senate Democratic leaders are politically paralyzed on how to proceed on the Bush-era tax rates.

With five months to go before the election, President Obama and key congressional Democrats remain at odds on whether the threshold for extending the George W. Bush-era rates for families should be $250,000 per year or $1 million annually. Obama backs the former while most Democratic leaders, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), support the higher threshold…

Democratic leaders maintain they are content to play defense, but are worried that some vulnerable Democrats might defect and support a temporary extension of all the Bush-era rates, which would undercut their negotiating position.

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It’s a fascinating weakness of this presidency: Obama has no reliable surrogates. Joe Biden is the vice president, and 90 percent of his job description is to be a carnival barker for his boss. But, particularly since Biden forced the president’s hand on gay marriage, it’s apparently dawned on the White House that Biden is less than dependable as a wingman. Sure, he might begin a statement by saying, “This president saved us from another Great Depression.” But you never know if he’ll finish by adding, “My neighbor has three rabbits,” or, “These are not my pants.”

The president has tried to be his own surrogate, personally going on the attack against Romney. But all that does is remind voters that Obama doesn’t want to talk about his own record — and further diminishes his tattered bipartisan brand.

That’s probably one reason they tried out David Axelrod as an anti-Romney hatchet man in Boston the other week. But you know your audition as Obama pitch man hasn’t gone well when 90 percent of the media coverage boils down to either stories about how you were booed by Romney supporters, or stories about how everyone’s asking, “What meth-head thought Axelrod would be a good surrogate?”

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Dominoes, anyone? The chips, indeed, are beginning to fall. They fell in Wisconsin, where Democrats failed to unseat Gov. Scott Walker in the recall election. Not incidentally, Obama was MIA in the run-up to the election. Might he have sensed that things would not go well for Democrats and thus decided to step out of the frame? When the going gets tough, the survivors vamoose.

All of which is to say, Obama has had a bad couple of weeks. Job numbers are still lousy, and the Supreme Court may soon drop a daisy cutter on the president’s signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

But the fact that Obama’s surrogates can’t stick to the script may be the best barometer of his perilous incumbency. In the political jungle, where people tend to be more Darwinian than divine, he is wounded and the pack is beginning to turn. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, who could be a hockey mom if he wore lipstick, recently told CBS’s Charlie Rose that Hillary Clinton would have been a better president.

Yes, that is blood you smell.

***

It’s way too early to say who the next president will be. But even now, in June, we can already predict at least one outcome of November’s election: if Mitt Romney ends up winning the White House, he will have a better shot at success than many of his presidential predecessors — and he will have Barack Obama to thank for the leg up…

I’m not arguing Romney would automatically be a great president. Nor am I saying that Obama deserves credit for everything his potential successor could eventually accomplish. Mitt could, and presumably would, make some mistakes. All presidents do. And history is unpredictable: the forces that ultimately define or derail a presidency are impossible to identify in advance. My only point is that right now, Romney is on track, if elected, to enter the Oval Office with a stronger wind at his back than many of its previous occupants, including Obama.

Hope you are still up. Two nights ago I asked UpperPOS a question.
2008 election party, twenty plus people incomes 40K-170K. How come when Baracka caca was elected we were not all ecstatic since he so loved the middle class?
Funny how libs are so selective on what they want to engage in.

PS his nasty request/ comment would be pretty difficult to comply with since it would be difficult to locate.

I wonder if he gets spanked really good in November that he will retire from the public. Deep in my heart I feel like we will be dealing with this fool for the rest of our lives. A more annoying Jimmy Carter.

Video 1 One observation here I made Bill Clinton does not speak from his heart. He only speaks from the other place. Corey Booker, is now in the same group as we Tea Party types. Guess what he too will awake in the morning unscathed by any of the hateful rhetoric. One last observation, Lanny Davis, need I say more?

Hey Cindy Munford; We’re getting closer to flipping WA state. Tea partiers and some GOPers are burrowing in and we’re eating the host (GOP elite structure) from the inside like those wasps that lay eggs in caterpillars.

There are no concrete answers in My Progressive Little Ponyland. Have you ever noticed how none, if any, can give you a tax rate that they think would be the point where taxes would be too high? No, they are always vague — like hope and change. The standard — like their labels — would always be open to revision, expansion in some cases (what I call the “Three Pro-CHOICE Items for Progs”: Uteri, rectums, and pot), but more restrictive in others (what I call the “Anti-CHOICE: We Know What’s Best For You: Healthcare, transfats, salt, soda, green energy, electric cars, monitoring on the internet, real-time tracking of your credit card purchases, etc.) Progressivism is the personification of Lucy moving the football. That’s why the COTUS has to be a “living and breathing document.”

President Douchebag can’t seem to help showing every negative emotion on his face. Me-chelle is the same way. The way her face seems to naturally fall into that terrible disapproving frown. How on earth did our stupid nation ever put these cretins in the White House?

I have a perverse sense of humor, I’d like to seem the explain it. On camera. With sound! I bet they would make that Pippy Longstocking chick, from that post the other day, look like she’s in charge of bringing the potato salad to the Mensa picnic.

Never thought I would say this, but I am actually looking forward to Bill’s Great Adventures on the campaign trail. He has stuck the knife in a couple of times, but I want to watch him twist it. I think he will.

I wonder if he gets spanked really good in November that he will retire from the public. Deep in my heart I feel like we will be dealing with this fool for the rest of our lives. A more annoying Jimmy Carter.

Cindy Munford on June 9, 2012 at 12:58 AM

I believe he will always be around and 10 times Carter.

And be making tons of dough doing it. I just long for the day-he isnt in my face daily-and on every damn show or site I go to.

I have to read quotes..I literally can’t hear him speak. I havent for 2 years at least.

Thank you, Schadenfreude and Cindy. And I’ll have you know I like reading your comments. Schad made me look up the definition to that moniker and subsequently make heavy usage of it in my blogging while Cindy has shown me how it is possible to kill people with kindness (but I’ll never get the hang of that as I too much love to sink my teeth into a fat leftist’s femur, figuratively speaking).

My real father..a life long dem..not happy. He isnt voting he told me-for Pres. 1st time ever. (no-he wont vote R..working on it :) )
He is more old school..he isnt into the extreme left lunacy.
That gives me hope as well.
The left has really pushed it soooo far that I think they have turned off even moderates.

The other day after arnold made his comment about the 2008 election party, I said to UES if he lives in the Upper East Side, then the odds are 99% he’s part of the 1%. I think I also said that Manhattan doesn’t define middle class the way the rest of the U.S. does. I don’t remember a reply, but perhaps I missed it. Whether he lives there or not, it strikes me as highly ironic to be using that as his name and then go on and on about the middle class.

How on earth did our stupid nation ever put these cretins in the White House?

rayra on June 9, 2012 at 1:00 AM

You know, I asked myself that question after Billy Jeff and Hildebeast had been in office. Then the stupid in the nation elected them to a second term.

Obummer is making me miss Billy Jeff and Hildebeast. At least Billy Jeff didn’t hate hate this country (not sure about Hildebeast though). It’s pretty obvious that both Obummer and Moochelle hate the US and want to fundamentally transform it into a more docile collection of subservient subjects.

That’s so sweet, thank you. We need all of our assets, I keep them around long enough for others to go in for the femure, figuratively speaking. I’d be willing to bet that most of them don’t think of me as kind but as stupid. An easy target and that’s just fine.

I’ve been thinking of revisiting some books also. Mr. Bradbury’s death reminded me of reading “Dandelion Wine” in high school. My ninth grade teacher had us read the most amazing assortment of books that as an adult I wonder what the heck the curriculum was that year. Or more likely I’m just crediting her with all the good books, it was a looonnnnng time ago.

Been about that long, if not longer since I read 1984, Animal Farm, and Brave New World.

Also really enjoyed a science fiction author, F Paul Wilson; he had a neat series of books about a civilization in the future that was full-on free-market capitalism. Pretty much to the point of libertarianism, but was still a series of very good books that illuminated the virtues of free markets.

You guys make me want to go read it again. It’s been XX years since I read it. I enjoyed it, but it horrified me. Give it a read.

4Grace on June 9, 2012 at 1:14 AM

I remember LOTF being required reading in my Honors English class. I also remember reading the first 1/3 of the novel and winging it from there. I hated all that Literature stuff. Am Lit my Junior year of HS and Eng Lit my Senior year. But my light reading was every book dealing with WWII I could get my hands on.

I had forgotten that one. Really great, just a direct frontal assault. Sometimes it is good to be a Senator.

I can’t listen to Obama either. I forced myself to listen a couple of times early on, but he never says anything of substance, and he isn’t a compelling speaker in any way. After all the lying he has done to the people of this country it just aggravates me to listen to him, because it doesn’t take long before some distortion or outright lie, some effort to manipulate those listening comes out of his mouth.

I hear you, Cindy. I’ve been re-reading several books that I first read in high school. I didn’t appreciate them at the time. Was too busy with stupid high school “stuff.”

4Grace on June 9, 2012 at 1:27 AM

Me too Ladies…I did that a few years ago. Bought and re-read many classics.
I was busy partying and in sports during HS- didn’t care at the time.
I enjoyed reading them. Even ones I was never assigned..like Moby Dick.

I hear you, Cindy. I’ve been re-reading several books that I first read in high school. I didn’t appreciate them at the time. Was too busy with stupid high school “stuff.”

4Grace on June 9, 2012 at 1:27 AM

Loved Animal Farm, read it in HS, daughter had a copy in her room. One night our pitbull—not a pup either, chewed it up left a mess. Apparently she didn’t like it much. Don’t know if it was the plot or character development.

I remember that. I don’t think he replied. After he took a couple of direct hits he disappeared.

novaculus on June 9, 2012 at 1:29 AM

He never replied to direct questions. Talked in stupid circles.(surprise)
But bragged about how he was a great stock broker, made good money, blah blah blah….
He was here to distract- not even attempt to debate/discuss anything.